Liberty
]] Liberty is a concept of political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has the right to act according to his or her own will. : See also: Freedom Quotes :Alphabetized by author ]] ]] ]] ]] * Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime, from the sowing of the seed at Athens, 2,460 years ago, until the ripened harvest was gathered by men of our race. It is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization; and scarcely a century has passed since nations, that knew the meaning of the term, resolved to be free. In every age its progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man’s craving for power, and the poor man’s craving for food. **Lord Acton, in The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877) * By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion. **Lord Acton, in The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877) * Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. It is not for the sake of a good public administration that it is required, but for security in the pursuit of the highest objects of civil society, and of private life. **Lord Acton, in The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877) * What is liberty? The measure of dignity. ** Giannina Braschi, on the independence of Puerto Rico, in the novel "Yo-Yo Boing!" * There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. ** John Adams, in notes for an oration at Braintree (Spring 1772) * Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality, an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil. ** John Adams, in a letter to John Taylor (15 April 1814) * If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. **Samuel Adams, in a speech at the Philadelphia State House (1 August 1776) * Liberty A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty Is worth a whole eternity in bondage. ** Joseph Addison, Cato, A Tragedy (1713), Act II, scene 1. * Ever since I arrived to a state of manhood, I have felt a sincere passion for liberty. ** Ethan Allen, as quoted in "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!" - American Heritage magazine Vol. 14, Issue 6 (October 1963) * It is for man to establish the reign of liberty in the midst of the world of the given. To gain the supreme victory, it is necessary, for one thing, that by and through their natural differentiation men and women unequivocally affirm their brotherhood. ** Simone de Beauvoir, in The Second Sex [Le Deuxième Sexe] (1949) as translated by H M Parshley (1972) * Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. **Louis Brandeis, in '' Olmstead v. United States (1928) * Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe. **Edmund Burke, in a letter to M. de Menonville (October 1789) * To those who can hear me, I say — do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed — the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish. ** Charlie Chaplin, in The Great Dictator (1940) * 'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume; And we are weeds without it. ** William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book V, line 446. * Then liberty, like day, Breaks on the soul, and by a flash from Heaven Fires all the faculties with glorious joy. ** William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book V, line 882. * It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt. ** John Philpot Curran, "Speech On the Right of Election" (1790) in Speeches of John Philpot Curran (1811) ** Curran's speech is the orignal source for the association between "eternal vigilance" and "liberty", but it's not clear where and when the quote evolved to the more familiar form we know today: "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Already by 1817, a toast to "Republicans" is recorded at a Fourth of July celebration in Bennington, Vt.: "To preserve your government you must be active, preserve yourselves you must be incessant—let your motto be 'eternal vigilance is the price we pay for liberty.'" (Vermont Gazette, July 8, 1817, p. 2.) Eight years later, another toast is made at a commemoration of the Battle of Bennington, this time to "The Freemen of Vermont", which gives the quote: "Let them remember that the 'price of Liberty is eternal vigilance,' and when they are called upon to give their suffrages, may they have judgment to select such man as will not bend the knee to power, or sacrifice principle on the altar of ambition." (Vermont Gazette, August 30, 1825, p. 2.) By 1833, a magazine calls it a "truth so often repeated" (Atkinson's Casket, Sept. 1833, 8:403). While Thomas Jefferson has sometimes been credited with this saying, there's no evidence he ever said it. US President Andrew Jackson, however, did repeat it in his farewell address (4 March 1837): :: But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. * Indeed nations, in general, are not apt to think until they feel; and therefore nations in general have lost their liberty: For as violations of the rights of the governed, are commonly not only specious, but small at the beginning, they spread over the multitude in such a manner, as to touch individuals but slightly. Thus they are disregarded. The power or profit that arises from these violations centering in few persons, is to them considerable. For this reason the governors having in view their particular purposes, successively preserve an uniformity of conduct for attaining them. They regularly increase the first injuries, till at length the inattentive people are compelled to perceive the heaviness of their burthens — They begin to complain and inquire — but too late. They find their oppressors so strengthened by success, and themselves so entangled in examples of express authority on the part of their rulers, and of tacit recognition on their own part, that they are quite confounded: for millions entertain no other idea of the legality of power, than it is founded on the exercise of power. **John Dickenson, in The Political Writings of John Dickinson, Esquire Vol. I (1801), Letter XI * The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. **Frederick Douglass, in an address on West India Emancipation (4 August 1857) * Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world. **Oliver Ellsworth, in "A Landholder, III" in The Connecticut Courant No. 1191, (19 November 1787), also in Essays On The Constitution Of The United States, Published During Its Discussion By The People, 1787-1788 (1892) edited by Paul Leicester Ford, p. 146 * Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power. ** Benjamin Franklin, in the Poor Richard's Almanack of 1738 * They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. ** Benjamin Franklin, written within quotation marks as part of his notes for a proposition at the Pennsylvania Assembly, but almost certainly his original thought, sometime shortly before 17 February 1755. See [http://books.google.com/books?id=W2MFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA270&lpg=PA270t#PPA270,M1 Memoirs of the Life and writings of Benjamin Franklin (1818)], edited by WIlliam Temple Franklin * Those who would give up EssentialLibertyto purchase a little TemporarySafety, deserve neither Libertynor Safety. ** Benjamin Franklin, in a variant used as a motto on the title page of An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania. (1759). This book wa published by Franklin, and probably written by Richard Jackson; in a letter denying that he was the author, Franklin claimed responsibility only for some small excerpts. * What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it… What is this liberty that must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not the freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check on their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few — as we have learned to our sorrow. What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest. **Learned Hand, in "The Spirit of Liberty" - a speech at "I Am an American Day" ceremony, Central Park, New York City (21 May 1944) * It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it.... It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! **Patrick Henry, speech at the Second Virginia Convention at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia (23 March 1775); first published in Life and Character of Patrick Henry (1817) by William Wirt * The most important thing in this world is liberty. More important than food or clothes — more important than gold or houses or lands — more important than art or science — more important than all religions, is the liberty of man. ** Robert G. Ingersoll, in an appeal to the jury in the trial of C.B. Reynolds for blasphemy (May 1887) * I am a believer in liberty. That is my religion — to give to every other human being every right that I claim for myself, and I grant to every other human being, not the right — because it is his right — but instead of granting I declare that it is his right, to attack every doctrine that I maintain, to answer every argument that I may urge — in other words, he must have absolute freedom of speech. ** Robert G. Ingersoll, at the trial of C.B. Reynolds for blasphemy (May 1887 * Liberty is the condition of progress. Without Liberty, there remains only barbarism. Without Liberty, there can be no civilization. If another man has not the right to think, you have not even the right to think that he thinks wrong. If every man has not the right to think, the people of New Jersey had no right to make a statute, or to adopt a constitution — no jury has the right to render a verdict, and no court to pass its sentence. In other words, without liberty of thought, no human being has the right to form a judgment. It is impossible that there should be such a thing as real religion without liberty. Without liberty there can be no such thing as conscience, no such word as justice. All human actions — all good, all bad — have for a foundation the idea of human liberty, and without Liberty there can be no vice, and there can be no virtue. Without Liberty there can be no worship, no blasphemy — no love, no hatred, no justice, no progress. Take the word Liberty from human speech and all the other words become poor, withered, meaningless sounds — but with that word realized — with that word understood, the world becomes a paradise. ** Robert G. Ingersoll, at the trial of C.B. Reynolds for blasphemy (May 1887 * The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them. **Thomas Jefferson, in Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774) * We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. **Thomas Jefferson, in the US Declaration of Independence (4 July 1776) * The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of its motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The past which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive; if they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independent 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is its natural manure. **Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to William S. Smith (13 November 1787) * The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. As yet our spirits are free. **Thomas Jefferson, letter to Colonel Carrington (27 May 1788) * I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. ** Thomas Jefferson, to Archibald Stewart (23 December 1791) * It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. ** Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush (21 April 1803) * Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. **Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac H. Tiffany (4 April 1819) * Humanity ha gained its suit; Liberty will nevermore be without an asylum. ** Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette in a letter to friends, on the American Revolution (1780), published in Memoirs de La Fayette Vol. II, p. 50, quoted in Martin's History of France : The Decline of the French Monarchy (1866) by Henri Martin, Vol. II, p. 418 * Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium. ** I prefer liberty with danger to slavery with security. ** Alt. translation: I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery. ** Alt. translation: I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude. ** Alt. translation: I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery. ** Rafał Leszczyński in the Polish Senate, according to his son, Stanisław Leszczyński (King Stanislas of Poland) in La voix libre du citoyen, ou Observations sur le gouvernement de Pologne (1749), p. 135 * The degree of our worthiness to become a free people shall be determined by our ability to respect a lawful leader, to agree to the existence of an opposition, to listen to its arguments, and especially to put the nation's good above all party prejudices and private interest. Liberty is not one of man's inalienable rights' it is a desirable but difficult acquisition, and must be contended for constantly. ** André Maurois, in The Art of Living (1939) * In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas ** Unity in things Necessary, Liberty in things Unnecessary, and Charity in all. ** Rupertus Meldenius (Peter Meiderlin) in Paraenesis votiva pro Pace Ecclesiae ad Theologos Augustanae Confessionis, Auctore Ruperto Meldenio Theologo (c. 1627). Some forms of this statement have been attributed to Richard Baxter, but though he used the motto, he himself attributed it to Meldenius. * I believe in only one thing and that thing is human liberty. If ever a man is to achieve anything like dignity, it can happen only if superior men are given absolute freedom to think what they want to think and say what they want to say. I am against any man and any organization which seeks to limit or deny that freedom … the superior man can be sure of freedom only if it is given to all men. ** H. L. Mencken, as quoted in Letters of H. L. Mencken (1961) edited by Guy J. Forgue, p. xiii. * The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for his religious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realised, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has added its weight to the scale. **John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859) * That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. **John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859) * Justly thou abhorr'st That son, who on the quiet state of men Such trouble brought, affecting to subdue Rational liberty; yet know withal, Since thy original lapse, true liberty Is lost. ** John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book XII, line 79. * There is no word that has admitted of more various significations, and has made more different impressions on human minds, than that of Liberty. Some have taken it for a facility of deposing a person on whom they had conferred a tyrannical authority; others for the power of choosing a person whom they are obliged to obey; others for the right of bearing arms, and of being thereby enabled to use violence, others in fine for the privilege of being governed by a native of their own country or by their own laws. Some have annexed this name to one form of government, in exclusion of others: Those who had a republican taste, applied it to this government; those who liked a monarchical state, gave it to monarchies. Thus they all have applied the name of liberty to the government most conformable to their own customs and inclinations: and as in a republic people have not so constant and so present a view of the instruments of the evils they complain of, and likewise as the laws seem there to speak more, and the executors of the laws less, it is generally attributed to republics, and denied to monarchies. In fine as in democracies the people seem to do very near whatever they please, liberty has been placed in this sort of government, and the power of the people has been confounded with their liberty. ** Charles de Montesquieu, in The Spirit of the Laws (1748) * Oh! if there be, on this earthly sphere, A boon, an offering Heaven holds dear, 'Tis the last libation Liberty draws From the heart that bleeds and breaks in her cause! ** Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh (1817), Paradise and the Peri, Stanza 11. * Liberty is too priceless to be forfeited through the zeal of an administrative agent. ** Frank Murphy, Oklahoma Press Publishing Co. v. Walling, 327 U.S. 186, 219 (1946). * He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. **Thomas Paine, in First Principles of Government (1795) * The philosophy of anarchism is included in the word "Liberty"; yet it is comprehensive enough to include all things else that are conducive to progress. No barriers whatever to human progression, to thought, or investigation are placed by anarchism; nothing is considered so true or so certain, that future discoveries may not prove it false; therefore, it has but one infallible, unchangeable motto, "Freedom." Freedom to discover any truth, freedom to develop, to live naturally and fully. ** Lucy Parsons, in The Principles of Anarchism * Most anarchists believe the coming change can only come through a revolution, because the possessing class will not allow a peaceful change to take place; still we are willing to work for peace at any price, except at the price of liberty. ** Lucy Parsons, in The Principles of Anarchism * It is incorrect to think of liberty as synonymous with unrestrained action. Liberty does not and cannot include any action, regardless of sponsorship, which lessens the liberty of a single human being. To argue contrarily is to claim that liberty can be composed of liberty negations, patently absurd. Unrestraint carried to the point of impairing the liberty of others is the exercise of license, not liberty. To minimize the exercise of license is to maximize the area of liberty. Ideally, government would restrain license, not indulge in it; make it difficult, not easy; disgraceful, not popular. A government that does otherwise is licentious, not liberal. **Leonard E. Read, in The Freeman * Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. **Ronald Reagan, in an address to the annual meeting of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce (30 March 1961) * Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.…The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip. **Ronald Reagan, in The Guardian London (14 June 1989) * Liberty is not a cruise ship full of pampered passengers. Liberty is a man-of-war, and we are all crew. **Kenneth W. Royce, in Boston's Gun Bible * Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master. **Sallust (Gaius Sallustius Crispus) in Histories * I must have liberty Withal, as large a charter as the wind, To blow on whom I please. ** William Shakespeare, As You Like It (c.1599-1600), Act II, scene 7, line 47. * Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe; There's nothing, situate under heaven's eye But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky. ** William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Act II, scene 1, line 15. * So every bondman in his own hand bears The power to cancel his captivity. ** William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar (1599), Act I, scene 3, line 101. * The ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain, by fear, nor to exact obedience, but contrariwise, to free every man from fear, that he may live in all possible security; in other words, to strengthen his natural right to exist and work without injury to himself or others. No, the object of government is not to change men from rational beings into beasts or puppets, but to enable them to develope their minds and bodies in security, and to employ their reason unshackled; neither showing hatred, anger, or deceit, nor watched with the eyes of jealousy and injustice. In fact, the true aim of government is liberty. ** Baruch Spinoza, in Theological-Political Treatise (1670) * The real disturbers of the peace are those who, in a free state, seek to curtail the liberty of judgment which they are unable to tyrannize over. ** Baruch Spinoza, in Theological-Political Treatise (1670) * The saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time. ** Justice George Sutherland, in his dissenting opinion on Associated Press v. National Labor Relations Board, 301 US 141 (1938) * Of course, there are dangers in religious freedom and freedom of opinion. But to deny these rights is worse than dangerous, it is absolutely fatal to liberty. The external threat to liberty should not drive us into suppressing liberty at home. Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination. ** Harry S. Truman, in address at the National Archives dedicating a shrine for the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights (15 December 1952)] * No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. **Gideon J. Tucker in Final Accounting in the Estate of A. B. (1866) * It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties which make the defense of our nation worthwhile. **Earl Warren, in United States v. Robel (1967) * Our history has shown us that insecurity threatens liberty. Yet, if our liberties are curtailed, we lose the values that we are struggling to defend. ** The 9/11 Commission Report by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States ''Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations'' :Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 437-39. * L'arbre de la liberté ne croit qu'arrosé par le sang des tyrans. ** The tree of liberty grows only when watered by the blood of tyrants. ** Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac, speech in the Convention Nationale (1792). * But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. ** Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France. * My vigour relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty. ** Edmund Burke, Speech on the Conciliation of America, Volume II, p. 118. * The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. ** Edmund Burke, Speech at a County Meeting at Bucks (1784). * Liberty's in every blow! Let us do or die. ** Robert Burns, Bruce to His Men at Bannockburn. * Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind! Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art, For there thy habitation is the heart— The heart which love of thee alone can bind; And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd— To fetters and damp vault's dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martyrdom. ** Lord Byron, Sonnet, introductory to Prisoner of Chillon. * When Liberty from Greece withdrew, And o'er the Adriatic flew, To where the Tiber pours his urn, She struck the rude Tarpeian rock; Sparks were kindled by the shock— Again thy fires began to burn. ** Henry F. Cary, The Power of Eloquence. * Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare, And shot my being through earth, sea, and air, Possessing all things with intensest love, O Liberty! my spirit felt thee there. ** Samuel Taylor Coleridge, France, An Ode, V. * Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty. ** II Corinthians, III. 17. * The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance. ** John Philpot Curran, speech (July 10, 1790). * Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. ** John Philpot Curran, speech in Dublin (1808). * Rendre l'homme infâme, et le laisser libre, est une absurdité qui peuple nos forêts d'assassins. ** To brand man with infamy, and let him free, is an absurdity that peoples our forests with assassins. ** Diderot. * The love of liberty with life is given, And life itself the inferior gift of Heaven. ** John Dryden, Palamon and Arcite, Book II, line 291. * The sun of liberty is set; you must light up the candle of industry and economy. ** Benjamin Franklin, in correspondence. * Where liberty dwells, there is my country. ** Benjamin Franklin. * Give me liberty, or give me death. ** Patrick Henry, speech (March, 1775). * The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time. ** Thomas Jefferson, Summary View of the Rights of British America. * As so often before, liberty has been wounded in the house of its friends. Liberty in the wild and freakish hands of fanatics has once more, as frequently in the past, proved the effective helpmate of autocracy and the twin-brother of tyranny. ** Otto Kahn, speech at University of Wisconsin (January 14, 1918). * The deadliest foe of democracy is not autocracy but liberty frenzied. Liberty is not foolproof. For its beneficent working it demands self-restraint, a sane and clear recognition of the practical and attainable, and of the fact that there are laws of nature which are beyond our power to change. ** Otto Kahn, speech at University of Wisconsin (Jan. 14, 1918). * Libertas, inquit, populi quem regna coercent, Libertate perit. ** The liberty of the people, he says, whom power restrains unduly, perishes through liberty. ** Lucanus, Pharsalia, Book III. 146. * License they mean when they cry, Liberty! For who loves that, must first be wise and good. ** John Milton, On the Detraction which followed upon my Writing Certain Treatises. * Give me again my hollow tree A crust of bread, and liberty! ** Alexander Pope, Imitations of Horace, Book II. Satire VI, line 220. * O liberté! que de crimes on commêt dans ton nom! ** O liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name! ** Madame Roland, Memoirs, Appendix. The actual expression used is said to have been "O liberté, comme on t'a jouée!"—"O Liberty, how thou hast been played with!" Spoken as she stood before a statue of Liberty. * That treacherous phantom which men call Liberty. ** John Ruskin, Seven Lamps of Architecture, Chapter VIII. Section XXI. * Deep in the frozen regions of the north, A goddess violated brought thee forth, Immortal Liberty! ** Tobias Smollett, Ode to Independence, line 5. * Behold! in Liberty's unclouded blaze We lift our heads, a race of other days. ** Charles Sprague, Centennial Ode, Stanza 22. * Libertatem natura etiam mutis animalibus datam. ** Liberty is given by nature even to mute animals. ** Tacitus, Annales (AD 117), IV. 17. * Eloquentia, alumna licentiæ, quam stulti libertatem vocabant. ** form of eloquence, the foster-child of licence, which fools call liberty. ** Tacitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus, 46. * If the true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn. ** Daniel Webster, address in Charlestown, Massachusetts (June 17, 1825). Bunker Hill Monument. * On the light of Liberty you saw arise the light of Peace, like "another morn, Risen on mid-noon;" and the sky on which you closed your eye was cloudless. ** Daniel Webster, speech regarding The Bunker Hill Monument (1825). * God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it. ** Daniel Webster, speech (June 3, 1834). * Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint. ** Daniel Webster, speech at the Charleston Bar Dinner (May 10, 1847). * I shall defer my visit to Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American liberty, until its doors shall fly open, on golden hinges, to lovers of Union as well as of Liberty. ** Daniel Webster, letter (April, 1851). When refused the use of the Hall after his speech on the Compromise Measures (March 7, 1850). The Aldermen reversed their decision. Mr. Webster began his speech: "This is Faneuil Hall—Open!" ''The Dictionary of Legal Quotations'' (1904) :Quotes reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 161-162. * The Judge is intrusted with the liberties of the people, and his saying is the Law. ** Twisden, J., King v. Wagstaffe (1665), Sir Thomas Ray. Rep. 138. * I should be as unwilling as any man to concur in anything injurious to the rights of the subject. The Habeas Corpus is a very wise and beneficial statute: and the Judges have always been disposed to put such a construction upon it as will favour the real liberty of the subject. But we must be careful that those Acts which have been made for the benefit of the subject are not turned into engines of oppression: nor must we, under the idea of promoting general liberty, withhold that degree of favour from individuals which is consistent with the security of the public. ** Rooke, J., Huntley v. Luscombe (1801), 1 Bos. and Pull. Rep. 538. * The last end that can happen to any man, never comes too soon, if he falls in support of the law and liberty of his country: for liberty is synonymous to law and government. ** Lord Mansfield, Rex v. Wilkes (1769), 4 Burr. Part IV., p. 2563. * Whatever restraint is larger than the necessary protection of the party, can be of no benefit to either, it can only be oppressive; and if oppressive, it is, in the eye of the law unreasonable. ** Tindal, C.J., Horner v. Graves (1831), 7 Bing. 743. * It does not seem to admit of doubt that the general policy of the law is opposed to all restraints upon liberty of individual action which are injurious to the interests of the State or community. ** Lord Watson, Nordenfelt v. Maxim Nordenfelt, &c. Co. (1894), L. R. App. Ca. 1894, p. 552; also per Lord Macnaghten, id., p. 565. See also E. Underwood & Son, Ltd. v. Barker, L. R. 1 C. D. 1899, p. 311 et seq. ''Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers'' (1895) :Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895). * Conquer thyself. Till thou hast done that, thou art a slave; for it is almost as well to be in subjection to another's appetite as thine own. ** Robert Burton, p. 377. * Not until right is founded upon reverence, will it be secure; not until duty is based upon love, will it be complete; not until liberty is based on eternal principles, will it be full, equal, lofty, and universal. ** Henry Giles, p. 378. * O, we all long for the day, the blessed day, when freedom shall at least be co-extensive with Christendom; when a slave political or domestic, shall not tread on an atom upon which the cross of Calvary has cast its shadow; when the baptism of the crucified shall be on every brow, the seal of a heavenly sonship; when the fire of a new Pentecost shall melt asunder, by its divine heat of charity, the bond which wrong or prejudice has fastened; when, to touch any spot over the wide sweep of God's Christianized earth, any spot which the gospel of the Saviour has ever visited, which the name of the Saviour has ever sanctified, shall be, in itself, the spell of a complete deliverance, the magic of a perfect franchise. ** Henry Giles, p. 379. * It is a question not often considered, whether we are not just as independent when we choose an upright and godly course, even if our fathers did walk in it, as when we follow somebody's example in sin. Indeed the highest and truest independence is that which always elects to do right. ** Henry M. King, p. 377. * There are two freedoms — the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where a man is free to do what he ought. ** Charles Kingsley, p. 377. * The first freedom is freedom from sin. ** Martin Luther, p. 377. * The Spirit of God first imparts love; He next inspires hope, and then gives liberty; and that is about the last thing we have in a good many of our churches at the present time. ** Dwight L. Moody, p. 379. * True liberty can exist only when justice is equally administered to all. ** Lord Mansfield, p. 379. * The great comprehensive truths, written on every page of our history, are these: Human happiness has no perfect security but freedom; freedom none but virtue; virtue none but knowledge; and neither freedom nor virtue has any vigor or immortal hope,except in the principles of the Christian faith, and in the sanctions of the Christian religion. ** Josiah Quincy, p. 378. * This is the true liberty of Christ, when a free man binds himself in love to duty. Not in shrinking from our distasteful occupations, but in fulfilling them, do we realize our high origin. ** Frederick William Robertson, p. 378. * Do you wish to be free? Then above all things, love God, love your neighbor, love one another, love the common weal; then you will have true liberty. ** Girolamo Savonarola, p. 378. * The only rational liberty is that which is born of subjection, reared in the fear of God and the love of man, and made courageous in the defense of a trust and the prosecution of duty. ** William G. Simms, p. 378. * The moment you accept God's ordering, that moment your work ceases to be a task, and becomes your calling; you pass from bondage to freedom, from the shadow-land of life into life itself. ** Henry Clay Trumbull, p. 378. * That religion which holds that all men are equal in the sight of the great Father will not refuse to acknowledge that all citizens are equal in the sight of the law. ** Alexis de Tocqueville, p. 379. * Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts — the cradle of its infancy, and the Divine source of its claims. ** Alexis de Tocqueville, p. 379. * Illustrious confessors of Jesus Christ, a Christian finds in prison the same joys as the prophets tasted in the desert. Call it not a dungeon, but a solitude. When the soul is in heaven, the body feels not the weight of fetters; it carries the whole man along with it. ** Tertullian, p. 380. * He is the freeman whom the truth makes free. ** Author not cited; reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 377. External links Category:Politics Category:Themes de:Unabhängigkeit he:חירות sk:Sloboda zh:自由